Mitigating Stress, Workload, and Fatigue on the Electronic Battlefield

Abstract : Our military forces are now facing new and often unanticipated challenges Many of the tasks they are now being asked to perform are not those which typically occupy the military mandate. That they do this so well argues for their professionalism and their adaptability but it brings in to play sources of stress and demand for which traditional military training provides little experience or protection. The better the theories and principles that we generate and validate, the better we will be able to help these individuals in their new and evolving missions. It is evident that current and future military operations will be cognitive wars (Scales, 2006). The future battleground will largely be the minds of other individuals and those individuals like our own forces, will certainly be under stress. It is crucial that we know about these effects if we are to understand them fully and exploit them effectively. Our Multidisciplinary University Research Initiative (MURI) program on Operator Performance Under Stress (OPUS) has contributed substantially to the scientific and operational understanding of stress and performance. This MURI reached completion in December 2006. Here we summarize the outcome of this program and the numerous successes achieved by researchers funded under this MURI.